Posts tagged Sense
Making Sense Of Google’s New Social Stuff: Messaging, Hangouts & Google+
May 16th
With a whirlwind of announcements at its Google I/O developers conference this week, Google’s vast suite of social products is finally starting to look like it was created by a single company and not cobbled together via a series of haphazard acquisitions. Here are the highlights of what’s changed:
Hangouts: Google Messaging, Unmessy At Last
Google is finally doing something to prune its thicket of messaging products. Let’s start with a look at the various chat and messaging products that were due for some much-needed spring cleaning:
- Google Talk. Talk was Google’s Instant Message client. It’s also called Google Chat or “GChat,” by many people who didn’t even know it was called Talk to begin with.
- Google+ Hangouts. Hangouts was Google+’s group video chat service, from the social network’s launch back in 2011.
- Google+ Messenger: A product redundant with Google Talk, Messenger was Google+’s own IM client.
- Google Voice: Google’s cult-hit digital telephony client, Voice allows users to route all their calls to one phone number. Google Voice works for calls and texting both on desktop and on its much-neglected mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Now, Hangouts becomes the messaging mini-umbrella under the social mega-umbrella of Google+. Hangouts, now available across desktop and mobile, will unify Google Talk, Google+ Messenger and the old Hangouts video chat service of yore.
According to a statement from Nikhyl Singhal, Google’s head honcho of real-time communications, Google Voice will be folded into Hangouts too (Yay!), though there’s no word on when.
Google+ Gets A Lot Of Love
Messaging may have been the messiest area of Google’s social services, but Google+ is the big umbrella that covers them all. Amidst the company’s epic 3-hour-plus Google I/O keynote yesterday, Google+ guru Vic Gundotra announced approximately one million updates to Google+, the social network that the company launched two years ago. Okay, he pegged the number at 41… but that’s almost a million.
The updates are extensive. As a regular Google+ user, it’s actually difficult to get a sense for what changed, since the redesign looks and feels right in stride with Google’s recent overall changes in user interfaces that runs from Google+ to Google Glass to Google Now and Android. So here’s a list of some of the most notable of the 41 updates:
- A multi-column layout. This can be toggled off, if you’re still into the Blogger single-column-era.
- Photos and videos get even bigger. Google is really into making media massive – and we would be too if the average person knew how to share properly high-res photos.
- New animations. Things are flipping and sliding all over the place in there.
- A third dimension. You can scroll up and down through your social stream, but Google wants you to be able to scroll in too. Now you can take a deeper dive on a given Google+ post -or is it a Card? I think we’re suppose to call everything Cards now — via related hashtags, which will lead you to more content of interest. It will also take you further down the Google+ rabbit hole, of course.
Lots of treats for photographers. Google+ has a thriving community of awesome photogs, and Google is keen to do right by them. Photos in Google+ now have all sorts of cool bells and whistles. A few I’m particularly stoked about include “auto highlight,” which de-emphasizes duplicate and blurry pics, automatically picking the best shot out of a batch. I’ve yet to test this extensively, but since I have a habit of bracketing (taking multiple shots at different exposures) – even on my phone – choosing the best photo of a set can be a major timesuck. This feature could help there. Another feature, “Auto Awesome,” can stitch together shots in a series to make a playful Photobooth-esque picture or even a Vine-like animated gif.
For a full breakdown of Google’s social updates, hit the company’s official blog post or just cruise around in Google+ for a while. The the social network has been the butt of many a joke over the last few years, and we’re happy to see Google take the time to spruce things up a little.
Photos by Nick Statt for ReadWrite.
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Sense, sensibility and SEO: Why search optimisation means nothing without … – The Drum
May 7th
 The Drum |
Sense, sensibility and SEO: Why search optimisation means nothing without …
The Drum Google has dedicated itself to devising increasingly fiendish algorithms to cripple SEO, but despite the many atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of a strong listing, SEO continues to be as much a part of a marketer's armoury as any other … |
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That web design versus SEO debate: does it make any sense at all? – Tnooz
May 2nd
 Tnooz |
That web design versus SEO debate: does it make any sense at all?
Tnooz MARKETING: A perennial battle between the creatives and technical marketers – where the desire the usability and engaging design jars against those tasked with getting people in the front door. But does it actually matter who wins, or can there … |
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Web Design vs. SEO: It Doesn’t Make Much Sense – Search Engine Journal
Apr 30th
 Search Engine Journal |
Web Design vs. SEO: It Doesn't Make Much Sense
Search Engine Journal Anti-SEO posts usually cause myriad reactions – “oh wow!”, “goddamn, not again!”, “this debate is eternal, like seriously”, “oh look, a link bait”… My reaction is: does all this make any sense? Of course it should. But in reality, it doesn't not at … |
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Web Design vs. SEO: It Doesn’t Make Much Sense
Apr 30th
It’s a common sight: designers bashing SEOs and vice versa. We all have been seeing this happening for a long while now. And it’s probably not going to end any soon. It might get pregnant and more heated in a year or two, though. Unless, of course, both sides realize that they finally need to [...]
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Wall Street Can’t Make Sense Of Apple Anymore
Mar 7th
Seems like only yesterday Apple was a simple company for Wall Street to understand. The products were great, demand was insane, and there was nowhere for the stock to go but up, up, up. Which is exactly what happened.
Those days are over. Apple’s stock has dropped 40% since last fall, from $705 to $426. This has happened even as the overall stock market has soared to new highs.
Wall Street has no idea what to make of this. Is Apple the greatest deal ever, or is Apple doomed? It depends who you ask. The opinions are all over the map. It’s actually kind of entertaining seeing Wall Street know-it-alls suddenly look so baffled.
Goldman Sachs says Apple is one of the most undervalued companies in the world. By that reasoning, the stock is a steal.
Citigroup says demand for iPhones and iPads is lagging, and that Apple won’t even hit its own revenue targets for this quarter.
(See also Apple May Never Regain Its Status As The World’s Most Valuable Company.)
It’s Not About Numbers
Wall Street guys will fret about how much cash Apple has, how cheap the stock is relative to earnings, what’s happening with gross margins, and so on.
But Apple’s stock price never had much to do with fundamentals. Apple is about emotion. It’s about narrative. It’s about mystery. It’s about secrecy and leaks, rumors and hype. It’s about people standing in line outside stores as if they’re going to a rock concert.
Apple does best when it lives in the realm that Arthur C. Clarke described when he wrote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Magic is what Apple was selling when it introduced the iPhone and iPad. As long as Steve Jobs kept pulling rabbits out of his hat, customers (and investors) were dazzled.
The problem is now we’ve come to expect magic from Apple. And lately Apple hasn’t delivered.
Sure, Apple is a terrific, well-run company with a business that every company in the world must envy. The iPhone and iPad are terrific products, and Apple keeps making them better.
But: there’s no magic.
Wall Street keeps trying to tell this story in numbers. Gross margins. Net margins. Growth rates. Market share.
But numbers are almost beside the point.
Apple is a hits business, like a movie studio. Right now it needs a new blockbuster franchise. Whether that’s an iWatch or an iTV almost doesn’t matter. Apple just needs something. Something new, something exciting, something that gets people standing in lines outside stores again.
Apple needs magic. Whether Tim Cook and his team are capable of creating it remains to be seen. That uncertainty, I suspect, is what has shaved $260 billion from Apple’s market value.
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Why Google’s Rumored Spotify-Killer Makes Perfect Sense
Feb 26th
Google is reportedly working on a music subscription service to compete with the likes of Spotify, MOG and Rdio. It might seem crazy to jump into a crowded market whose basic business model is already questionable – but for Google it makes perfect sense.
The company is already a huge, albeit unofficial, player in streaming music. YouTube is now a top destination for listening to songs and albums, not to mention the trove of remixes and parodies that get uploaded everyday. Today, when teenagers want to hear a new song, they don’t turn on the radio or buy a CD. They go to YouTube.
There’s good reason for that. First off, it’s free. It also has an enormous amount of music. I’ve had premium subscriptions to Rdio, Rhapsody and (currently) Spotify. As extensive as those services’ libraries are, there’s lots of music they don’t have. Whenever I can’t find something on Spotify, I check YouTube and SoundCloud. It’s usually there. Want to stream the Beatles from your phone? Their songs are all over YouTube, not Spotify.
YouTube: The World’s Biggest Accidental Music Service
If there was any question about the critical role YouTube plays in music discovery, it was answered last week when Billboard announced it will factor YouTube listens into the formula behind its Hot 100 singles chart. In a post-”Call Me Maybe” world, it’s impossible to accurately analyze the popularity of a song without taking YouTube plays into consideration.
Of course, the music-streaming use case is not quite what YouTube was designed for. It’s a video site. It may work as a one-song-at-a-time music search engine to fill Spotify’s gaps, but it’s pretty poorly organized compared to existing music services. That’s why Google Music is a more logical and likely home for this rumored streaming service, presumably with some cross-promotion via YouTube.
The fact that people turn to YouTube for music is something that evolved organically thanks to its user-generated nature and Google’s willingness to pay licensing fees to keep the music playing. There’s still plenty of copyright infringement going on, but Google is getting more aggressive about dealing with that. The RIAA may still complain, but more and more, Google is catering to copyright owners. Initiatives like this are exactly why the Plex is so eager to please the content industry.
Thanks to YouTube and the Google Music MP3 store, the company already has relationships in place with labels, songwriters and other copyright owners. But those existing partnerships aren’t enough. The subscription-based streaming model is fundamentally different and requires unique, rather costly licensing deals.
Music Streaming Is About To Get Even More Crowded
If you think the music streaming space is crowded now, just wait. Deezer, a hugely popular streaming service now available in 182 countries, is in talks to launch in the U.S. sometime this year. This summer, another much-hyped streaming service will go live, this time from Beats Audio, which acquired MOG last year. Then there’s the ongoing rumor about Apple taking aim at Pandora with an iTunes-based Internet radio product of its own.
Exactly what Google’s streaming service will look like is anybody’s guess. That will depend in large part on what kind of content deals it can manage to negotiate. But the company is in a very good position to enter this space. After all, Google already has millions of streaming music users. It just needs to polish (and almost certainly rebrand) the experience and make it official with the major labels.
Lead photo by Alexandre Normand
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‘Portion Distortion’: Why the Soda Ban Makes Sense – Huffington Post
Feb 7th
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'Portion Distortion': Why the Soda Ban Makes Sense
Huffington Post … : … would establish maximum sizes for beverages offered and sold in FSEs (food service establishments). The limits would apply to cups and containers used for sugary drinks. The limits would also apply to all self-service cups and containers … |
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Why It Might Make Sense For Apple To Make A Five-Inch Phone
Jan 23rd
If you’re an Apple watcher that isn’t too busy focusing on the present, you’re probably wondering what Apple has cooking for the near future. While Wednesday’s critical earnings report will reflect on the health of its existing products, the smart money is on whether or not Apple’s got new magic in the pipeline.
Looking at the successful models in the Android world, much of the mobile geek chatter is about Apple’s conspicuous lack of a phone in the five-inch screen range. Apple showed with the iPad Mini that it isn’t above letting other manufacturers beat it to market with a new device size. It just waits to enter the market until it makes sense internally to do so.
Well, Rene Ritchie at iMore has a pretty spotless record of figuring out when it makes sense. Instead of fiending over rumors, he just uses math and common sense and says, “look, here’s how Apple could do it.” He was right about the iPhone 5. And this week, Ritchie has taken a look at a variety of five-ish-inch phone form factors and figured out which ones are plausible for Apple to actually do.
He considers a stretched-out 1136×640 pixel-doubled, the same resolution as an iPhone 5, on a theoretical 5-inch phone. This would have a lower pixel density than the 5′s retina screen, but still not bad. He also looks at 3x and 4x possibilities, which would make for some very nice displays, but given that Apple just made developers rework everything to get to 2x resolution — and that work is still not done — this new display density seems farfetched.
Ritchie also looks at more outlandish possibilities. It’s well worth reading.
Apple fans are resistant to believing that this device size matters. Just because there’s a market for five-inch Android phablets doesn’t mean that an iThing in the same size would sell. But Ritchie plays devil’s advocate on that and shows why people might very well be interested in a five-inch iPhone.
Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock
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Secrecy: The Real Reason Taking Dell Private Makes Sense
Jan 21st
There’s been a lot of talk about why the proposed Dell buyback doesn’t add up. Some of it dates back more than two years, and the arguments all center on one thing – money.
The problem, as critics see it, is that going private robs Dell of critical cash at the time it most needs to spend that cash to acquire companies that diversify its lineup. It’s a valid point, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to look at the situation. Even with a cash crunch, pulling Dell off the public market might be exactly what the company needs to avoid prying eyes that could toast its chances for future success.
The IBM Ideal
When IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2004, everybody won. IBM pulled in some needed cash, exited a low-margin business and focused on the enterprise. Lenovo got instant credibility and brought efficiencies to a market that still had years of oomph.
Nearly everyone predicts that Dell wants to do the same with its buyback, but today’s market is fundamentally different. PC sales are dropping, and Dell’s share of that market is falling even faster. Plenty of PC manufacturers would be willing to fold Dell’s brand into their lineup, but not at the premium investors would ask. Time isn’t on Dell’s side. The longer it waits to offload its PC business, the worse the deal will get. Going private would at least shield the company from having to make those details pubic.
The HP Boondoggle
Dell is smaller and more dependent on PCs than is HP, but the two companies line up well enough to illustrate how a reinvention of Dell might work.
HP is an absolute wreck. Investors are shaky, key executives are fleeing, and even Meg Whitman’s rosiest turnaround scenario offers years of bleeding to come. HP has product problems, legal problems and PR problems, and it’s headed for a fire sale. Seven out of the ten first-page results on a Google News search for “HP” were negative. HP is floundering in full view, and all the negativity is making it difficult for the company to manuever.
So why didn’t HP go private?
According to Gartner Senior Research Analyst Chris Gaun, “HP has a larger market capitalization, and going private might not have been an option.” Raising $15 billion for a Dell buyout is pushing the envelope. $34 billion for HP would be in a completely different zip code. Gaun also points out other complications, such as the Autonomy investigation, which would add substantial risk and complexity to any buyout. HP is too big and too messy for a buyback.
HP CEO Meg Whitman claims low-margin PCs are essential to HP’s survival as a full-spectrum technology provider. Lets’ say Dell agrees. Going private still makes sense.
According to Reticle Research Principal Analyst Ross Rubin, a buyback could benefit Dell, regardless of its goal. “Going private would insulate Dell from investor scrutiny and the expenses of running a public company. It would have more flexibility to continue the low-margin PC business if, like HP, it continued to see it as part of a solution – or spin it out and take the revenue hit, as HP was considering.”
Protecting The Brand
Even the high-margin products and services Dell wants to protect are being pushed toward commodity status. In the end, Dell will be trading on its name. Insulating that name from controversy that might cheapen it could be worth some belt-tightening.
Michael Dell photo from Dell.
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